Haryana has deep and bitter memoirs of emergency. Late veteran political leader Choudhary Bansi Lal was the main member of caucus that ruled or misruled the country during the dark period of emergency. Most of prominent opposition leaders including Morarji Desai, Chandershekher Singh, Piloo Mody, Ramdhan, L.K.Advani, Sikandar Bhakt, Ashok Mehta, Raj Narayan , Biju Patnaik and Devi Lal were kept in Haryana during emergency.

While
Morarji Desai was kept under house arrest in a rest house in Gurgaon
district, the rest were kept in Rohtak Jail. Bansi Lal, the then
chief minister of Haryana
who later became the defence minister used to publicly boast that
Indira Gandhi asked him to keep jails ready.
M.G Devasahayam, Haryana
cadre I.A.S officer, who was the then District Magistrate-cum-
incharge of Chandigarh
jail had written a shocking article in an English daily stating that
when Jaiparkash Narayan was shifted to P.G.I. Chandigarh,
he got instructions from 'Delhi Durbar' that he should get
further instructions from Bansi Lal.

In
Focus

According to Devasahayam, when he called Bansi Lal
he was shocked to listen his words in chaste Haryanvi 'Yeh apne aap
ko hero smajhta hai. Us ko wahin pade rehne do. Kisi se milne ya
telephone karne nahi dena. Aap khatam ho jayega.' (This fellow thinks
that he is a hero. Let him lie there. Don't allow him to meet anybody
or telephone anyone. He will be finished this way').

M.G. Devasahayam further revealed that on the same
night, Chandigarh's Home Secretary conveyed to him another 'diktat'
from Bansi Lal that JP should not be allowed to take a walk in the
open between sunrise and sunset. During those days Bansi Lal used to
describe Jaiprakash Narayan as a mad man in public meetings in
Haryana.

Shyam Khosla and M.L. Kak,
reporter with The Tribune, a leading English Daily of Northern India
were detained. Sheikh Abdullah got Kak shifted to Kashmir while
Khosla remained in jail. After the emergency was lifted and the then
chief minister, Devilal got Bansi Lal arrested and handcuffed in a
cooked up case , Shyam Khosla went to meet Bansi Lal and asked him
how he was feeling.

Bansilal in handcuffs retorted ''Khosla I still hate
you''. Although there are conflicted versions about Khosla's arrest
as independent sources claims that he was arrested because of his
association with RSS.

After Bansi Lal was made the defence minister, his
dummy BD Gupta, was made Chief Minister and there were family
planning excesses during the emergency in Haryana. When the Janta
Party government came in power and Shah Commission was appointed to
probe emergency excesses, B.D. Gutpa made a sweeping statement before
the Commission that he was the dummy chief minister and state was
controlled by Surinder Singh, son of Bansi Lal.

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